


rabbits wrapped in velvet

by wildenessat221b



Category: Ghosts (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, CHRISTMASSSSS, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, as always subtle but be safe kids, cap being a stress head who is bad at writing poetry, havers being far more functional, its there a bit, repressed army bois
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:00:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27875726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildenessat221b/pseuds/wildenessat221b
Summary: Christmas is approaching and presents are exchanged.Although of course it's never that simple.
Relationships: The Captain/Lieutenant Havers (Ghosts TV 2019)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 89





	rabbits wrapped in velvet

**Author's Note:**

> Greetings! 
> 
> This piece is entirely not my own, it is the product of a post by the delightful tumblr user winoforever32, who of course this fic is dedicated to. I owe her every iota of credit for this little piece. 
> 
> Hope everyone's having a decent December in these mad times, stay safe!

He leaves it on his bed.

He knocks twice, quick and sharp, and there is no reply, and he nearly turns and runs, gunshot fast, startled like the most skittish of rabbits, at the realisation that he has _no bloody excuse now._ He takes a breath, he straightens his tie, he steps inside. _Straight into the trap_ , he thinks, the image of the rabbit still solid in his mind.

Havers’ room – and thank whatever Lord is looking down on him that he has his own; it is Christmas after all – smells like him, and The Captain winces at the fact that he notices. It smells of dry Cedar and boot polish, of tea and of honey, of soap and of musk. It smells of a military man who likes his hot drinks sweet and The Captain considers, as he creeps towards the bed - neatly made but with wrinkles in the sheets – how much closer to a _normal person_ Havers is than him. His own sheets are tucked in tight, a line of cannon fodder stationed at the boundary of his sleep. His room doesn’t smell like much at all.

The gifts are hot and heavy in his hands and he wants to put them down but he _can’t._ His quivering fingers refuse to do anything but _grip them harder,_ and he remembers climbing out of a trench in Northern France for the last time and a General trying to wrench a damp rifle out of his young hands. _“I can’t,”_ he had said, and it had come out strangled. “ _I can’t.”_

He stands there for a long, long moment. He looks down at the bed, at the stray hair on the pillow, at the groove where he’d sat that morning to lace his boots, at the slightly upturned corner of the sheet. He looks at these things as the clock ticks on the mantelpiece and he tries not to see an invitation.

 _“Stay with me tonight,”_ Havers whispers sometimes in his mind.

“ _Best not,”_ he replies, except when he doesn’t.

He puts the book down. He picks it up again. He turns, he marches towards the door, he turns back again, he puts the book down. He runs his fingers across the golden lettering. It is a first edition, of a book Havers had mentioned liking once, but which The Captain currently has no idea of the title of because _the bally letters are all running into one._ He blinks, he clears his throat.

He almost turns to go again.

He pauses.

He purses his lips, fills his cheeks with air, blows it out. Grenade.

And then he tucks the poem beneath the front cover and lays the rose across the top.

And then he runs.

***

The men are _most amused._

They jibe and prod and snigger and guffaw, they mock and tease and slap him on the back and ask if she’s got a sister, although at preference one with a higher level of poetic literacy.

Havers counts every possible blessing that in their boyish excitement, they’ve failed to pick up on the most damning thing.

_The bally fool’s called me “Havers” in a love poem._

He smiles, he sips his tea, he smiles again.

***

“Yes, what is it?”

The Captain glances up from his paperwork and even as he’s wearing it, he’s aware that his face is sheepishly hopeful. Havers pokes his head through the door and smiles, and The Captain immediately berates himself for having been foolish enough to be hopeful because _oh… this isn’t actually what I wanted at all._

_Rather frightening, actually._

“Ah, Havers,” he says, telling his face rather sternly to smile calmly. “Yuletide… something or other.”

“Felicitations, sir?”

“Yes, that’ll very much do. What can I do for you?” he stands and clasps his hands behind his back, squeezing them hard to compress the niggly thought that sounds like Havers and appears to be whispering _run away with me forever._

“Well, nothing really, Sir. I just wanted to give you this.”

With steady fingers that The Captain regards with a sort of unconscious bitterness, he hands over a small box. “Yuletide Felicitations,” he says with a smirk.

The Captain’s mouth falls open. He closes it again. Opens it. A string of disparate syllables fall out. They order themselves a little, but not much.

“Wh – wha – this is – what – completely unnecess – what on Earth has prompted – I –“

“Just thought of you, sir. Silly little…” and there’s a note of nervousness in his voice for the first time. “…silly little… if there’s nothing I can do while I’m here?”

The sound The Captain makes is only an approximation of human language, but Havers takes it as a dismissal (assisted in this inference by the fact that The Captain is beginning to look more than a little unwell) and turns to leave.

The Captain blinks hard as the door shuts behind him. He finds himself leaning rather heavily on his chair as he lowers himself into it. He sits back, places the box on the desk, exhales.

“Good lord.”

***

It takes him another three hours before he can open it.

“Very important paperwork to be getting on with first,” he says out loud to the empty room.

No very important paperwork whatsoever, of course, gets done.

It is dark outside by the time he removes the paper. Written on the inside, in a messy but rather charming scrawl, are the words, “Same colour as your moustache. Merry Christmas.” The box inside is velvet-lined and deep red.

He opens it a millimetre then closes it again, as though checking that nothing is going to jump out. He’s thinking about rabbits again.

He takes a breath and opens it all the way.

Inside, a beautiful pocket watch. The face is white as fresh snow, the hands blacker than the centre of an inkwell and the shining exterior – engraved with intricate swirls and dips, the cleanest of lines and sharpest of strokes – is indeed the colour of his moustache.

His breath has already been stolen from him by the time he notices the other engraving. This one is words, small and unassuming, tucked away just below the rim of the covering. Blood rushes to his head and the foot soldiers in his mind call a brief surrender as his eyes water and his body freezes.

_“I believe in you.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading, comments make my little heart sing. 
> 
> Lots of love to all.


End file.
